


Setting the Sail

by sanguinity



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Community: holmestice, F/F, Post-Canon, Story: The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, Story: The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 19:26:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4071790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Lady Frances Carfax’—as she is <i>not</i> called—has already lost years of her life to her ordeal. She has no intention of losing anything more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Setting the Sail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Garonne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garonne/gifts).



> **Warnings** : Non-explicit references to cognitive injuries, stalking, kidnapping, imprisonment, and domestic abuse.
> 
> Some will recognize that I have drawn inspiration from the Granada version of ‘Lady Frances Carfax,’ but this is set firmly in the canon ‘verse.
> 
> I am indebted to my betas, grrlpup and language-escapes, and my britpicker, thesmallhobbit; this fic would not have existed without their assistance and encouragement. All remaining errors are, as always, my own.

> ‘Tis the set of the sails  
>  And not the gales,  
>  That tells the way we go.
> 
>               —Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

I had not been expecting a package from Jane, nor even a letter, but the receptionist asked me to wait and retrieved a slim parcel for me. Jane and I had corresponded by turns on alternate Sundays ever since we left school, but it was unusual for either of us to send a missive in advance of our established schedule: barring one extended interruption, previous deviations from our usual rhythm had all been marked with black borders. And yet the address on the parcel’s wrapper, when he handed it across to me, was in Jane’s dear hand, as familiar to me as my own.

My mother would have had stern words for my lack of restraint in opening my mail in public—not to mention that I was windblown and sunburnt, fresh from the lake and hardly fit for lingering in polite society—but even so, I retrieved my knife from my reticule and slit the parcel’s string there where I stood in the Hotel Coniston’s lobby.

I folded back the paper to reveal a copy of the _Strand_ magazine.

The sight of the masthead alone was sufficient for me to know what I held; I did not need to read Jane’s enclosed note, nor even see Sherlock Holmes’ portrait above the masthead. Jane, after all, knew when I had stopped reading the Sherlock Holmes stories, as well as why. There was only one reason she would have troubled my peace by sending this one.

‘Lady Maria?’ the receptionist asked. ‘Are you well?’

I glanced up at him, distracted by my wonder that Dr Watson could publish such a thing without asking my leave. But then why should he ask my leave? My rescue had been effected in a private house, away from reporters and other curious eyes, and the case had never been set before the public in a court of law. Despite the lurid details, it had not become a matter of popular excitement. Unless Dr Watson had been so imprudent as to use my name in his story, there should be nothing to connect the matter with me.

And yet clearly the story was recognizable enough to my confidantes. Jane, of course: I held the evidence of that in my hands. And how many others?

‘Lady Maria?’ he repeated.

I slid the magazine back into its wrapper and tried to remember his question. ‘I am very well, Mr Jeffries,’ I assured him. ‘I will have an early dinner in my room, please, and I shall want to write a note for Lady Sutton.’ I hated disappointing Lady Sutton, but I would be no fit companion for her that evening. Nor for anyone, truly—I could not imagine making polite conversation at table that night—but I would far rather disappoint Lady Sutton with my absence than with my distracted and lacklustre presence. I had already lost years of my life to my ordeal; I had no intention of losing anything more to it.

Lucia was waiting for me in my room, and I allowed her to help me change before I dismissed her for the remainder of the evening. When I had finally gained my privacy, I set the magazine aside where I would not have to look at it, and took Jane’s letter to the window. As she always did these days, she wrote in block print adopted for my comfort.

> _My Dearest Maria,_
> 
> _I am sad to say that it is a distinct risk, when one has consulted with Mr Sherlock Holmes, that one should later discover one’s personal travails made into a popular entertainment. I wish I could say that I gave that risk its due consideration when I appealed to him for aid, but I did not. Nor can I truthfully say that I would do differently, if it were to be done over: if there is a man of greater powers than Mr Holmes, I do not know of him, and I would not entrust your own dear life to anyone lesser. I only pray that you can forgive me my part in bringing about Dr Watson’s latest story._
> 
> _I would not trouble you at all with the story, were it not for the risk of you being surprised by its contents over tea. I know that it often distresses you not to know the whole of a thing, and thus I have included ‘The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax,’ as Dr Watson calls it, for your examination. Nevertheless, I cannot advise reading it. It is graphic and sensational, and sure to disturb your peace. If you wish to treat it as it best deserves and throw it on the fire, you have my full support, and I shall myself tell you as much or as little of its contents as you care to know._
> 
> _However, whatever you choose, please be reassured that I have read it carefully, and that Dr Watson has altered sufficient details that no one will ever trace the story back to you. You may happily deny ‘Lady Frances Carfax’ for the rest of your days if you wish, and none but our small circle will be any the wiser._
> 
> _Again, my beloved Maria, I beg your forgiveness for my part in this. Your happiness is the world to me, and if I can be of any assistance to you, you need only write to tell me so, or come yourself to tell me. I and my home are always at your disposal, and it is a blessing to me when you choose to partake of it._
> 
> _Your Jane, as always_

I put the letter aside, touched again by her kindness to me.

There was no question of forgiveness, of course. I owed Jane my life twice over, once for raising the alarm, and again for labouring tirelessly until I was returned to her side to regain my health. She was the first great love of my life, and even if we had put aside our passion for each other when we left school, our devotion to each other had never flagged. She had married a kind man, as generous with me as he was with her, and I had stood beside her at her wedding with hardly a twinge. If she struggled to accept his touch, I had never been given cause to suspect it.

For my own self, unfortunately, I never had learned to abide a man’s attentions. Thankfully, I did not have to: I had funds of my own, sufficient if modest for a woman of my station, and the family title and its attendant responsibilities had happily passed well away from me. And so Jane had stayed at home and indulged her husband and children, while I travelled and made the acquaintance of other independent women. She and I exchanged letters every second Sunday, and we were both content, or as near to it as made no difference.

Or so it was, until the affair that had caused Jane to seek out Mr Sherlock Holmes.

I let the magazine lay untouched while I ate my solitary dinner, for I, not Dr Watson, was master of my own story. Only after I had finished eating did I sit myself in the window to read.

I required two passes to absorb the bulk of it. The length of my airless imprisonment has had lingering effects: while I have regained some mastery over the written word, reading is no longer a pleasure, and likely never will be again. However, my difficulties with Dr Watson’s story were far greater than my usual struggles with reading. On certain passages, my eye obstinately skittered over the print, as obdurate in its refusal to meet the lines as a magnet refusing to be forced against its mate. It was infuriating to hold Dr Watson’s pages in my hands and yet not be able to determine with surety what they said. By the time I put the magazine aside, my head was pounding with strain, and despite my best efforts there were still passages whose precise content I could not swear to.

The gist of it, however, was clear enough. I was a helpless ‘stray chicken,’ existing to vex the lives of consulting detectives. ‘The Honourable Philip Green,’ as Dr Watson had called him, was the steadfast hero to whom I owed my life.

It was intolerable, even beyond its base intent of offering up my most desperate trials for the entertainment of bored clerks. I tore the pages of Dr Watson’s story from the magazine and fed them to the fire one by one, as my dearest Jane had advised me.

When the vile words had burned completely, I disassembled the remainder of the magazine into small sections, and fed them to the fire as well, so that there would be no lingering evidence to excite the curiosity of chamber and lady’s maids. Jane’s letter, far more incriminating than a defaced issue of the _Strand_ and yet more dear to me as well, I locked safely away in my writing desk. Despite Dr Watson’s effort to resurrect it, that chapter of my life was complete, and I had no intention of inadvertently prolonging it by permitting myself to fall prey to scandalmongers or blackmailers.

When I finally slept, I huddled in my cold bedding and tried not to dream of graveyards.

I had nearly escaped the hotel unremarked the next morning when Lady Sutton called to me as I crossed the lakeside terrace, her flat American accent unmistakable. I had awakened with the hope of using the twin action of wind and water to scrub away my lingering unease over Dr Watson’s story, but the lure of Lady Sutton’s company was, as always, strong. I changed course to join her where she sat in an out-of-the-way corner, reading in the early sun, away from the bustle of the staff making ready for the day.

Lady Sutton was a beautiful woman, not long past thirty. Between her face and her fortune, she had not wanted for companionship since her arrival at Hotel Coniston some weeks earlier, and yet she had been persistently cool toward her suitors, directing her attentions toward me instead. In the first days after her arrival, I frequently looked up from my own activities to find her watching me from across the room, only half-attending to her own companions. The first time I met her eye, challenging such rudeness, an abashed smile flitted across her face, and yet she boldly held my gaze for a few seconds, before dropping her eyes. The effect was altogether charming, and I was not above being drawn by it. One of my confirmed pleasures is a woman who is old enough to know her own mind and independent enough to follow it, and yet still willing, for our mutual satisfaction, to temporarily cede some of her independence to my direction. There was an indefinable something in Lady Sutton’s gaze that led me to hope she was such a woman, and my heart quickened accordingly.

Nevertheless, I am more cautious in my companions than I once was, and I made discreet inquiries into her background. Lady Sutton’s father was an American oil magnate, and her late husband well-connected with the Admiralty. Given the increasing tensions on the Continent, it was easy to believe that their marriage had not been so much between the lady and her husband, but between her father’s oil and the Navy. The husband had died scarcely a year after their nuptials, and she had not remarried since, whether in loyalty to her father’s interests or her own I could not tell. During the course of our acquaintanceship I came to know that she avoided the topic of her late husband with the granite determination of a woman who could not bear his memory. In fact, she seldom referred to her past at all, nor did she inquire into that of others. The idiosyncrasy was genial to me, given how much of my own history is lost in the wake of my injuries.

But the far greater portion of Lady Sutton’s geniality to me, of course, was in her quick, incisive mind, and in the flattery of her attentions. I had thought myself past exciting such admiration in another, but my vanity, I am sad to say, has not faded alongside whatever small justification I once had for it. I had thought myself moderately content with my racing skiff and my correspondence with Jane, but having drawn Lady Sutton’s attention I began to feel how reclusive I had become after my convalescence. I wanted for companionship.

So when Lady Sutton secured an introduction, then proved herself an eager and intelligent companion in my less-nautical rambles about the District, I found myself relishing her pursuit, drawing out our flirtation to a sweet and excruciating degree. We discussed the poets Michael Field and their regrettable turn from Paganism to Papism, as well as other topics that confirmed my initial impression of her as a woman who enjoyed the company of other women, but we had not progressed farther. After all, the Hotel Coniston had been a pleasant refuge to me, and I did not wish to be forced to change my residence over a misunderstanding.

‘I trust you’re feeling better this morning?’ Lady Sutton asked when I came near. She leaned forward to draw another chair near hers, then took my hand when I sat. ‘I was concerned to hear of your indisposition.’

‘I am much better, thank you,’ I told her. Her touch was a comfort, and if it did not dispel the shadow of Dr Watson’s story, it made it seem easier to bear. ‘A sudden turn, but a temporary one. I’m only sorry that I left you to endure Mr Bedford on your own.’

She laughed, her concern clearing from her face. ‘Oh, it wasn’t too terrible. Nothing worse than he and Sir Thomas going on all through dinner about that awful aeroplane race.’

‘Better than listening to them whinge about the strikes,’ I offered.

‘Mm,’ she agreed. ‘I prefer our dinner companions when you are there to help me bear their company,’ she added, running a feather-light finger over the calluses on my palm. My hands are a disgrace, rough and wind chapped, a stark contrast to her paler, softer ones, but she did not seem to mind. She drew a fingernail across my palm, beside the line of thickened skin at the base of my fingers, and it abruptly raised a shudder in me. I closed my fingers hard over hers. The pleased smile she gave me said she knew exactly what she had done. I gave her a dark glance, and she laughed. ‘You’re going sailing today?’ she asked.

I glanced down at the dock. The early morning air was still, but a stiff breeze would soon rise with the heat. Lately I had been entertaining the possibilities of taking Lady Sutton out in the skiff. There is less privacy in an open boat than one might imagine—voices carry across the water, and there is no shelter but the sails to hide one from the shore—and yet there would still be ample opportunity to touch her and guide her as we maneuvered in that small space. She had more than once indicated that she would welcome an invitation, but I was waiting to be more sure of her before I extended it. The little boat was my personal refuge, after all. The hope that a day on the water with her would be the precursor to a more physical intimacy was nearly trivial, next to that.

I looked back at her to see mischief in her eyes. I found myself wondering what noise she would make when surprised by the spray.

I did not wish to wait any longer; I was as sure of her as I would ever be. ‘After the breeze picks up, yes. And what are your plans for the day?’

She sat back in her chair, affecting an uncharacteristic indolence. ‘I am entirely in want of occupation. It’s a great pity.’

I smiled, but as she sat back her motion revealed the magazine on her lap. Mr Holmes and Dr Watson leapt down from a hansom, hurrying through a crowd to browbeat a team of coffin-bearers back into a house.

‘Lady Maria?’ I heard her ask.

I looked up.

‘It’s the latest Sherlock Holmes story,’ she said, with a self-deprecating smile. ‘I confess that I follow them rather avidly. Dr Watson has outdone himself with this one.’

I could not endure the prospect of making polite conversation with her about Dr Watson’s story. ‘Then I can take my leave,’ I told her, with as gracious a smile as I could manage, ‘confident in your good fortune to have such engaging material to occupy yourself with. If you’ll forgive me, the boatman made some repairs to the rigging last night, and I must check their adjustment before the wind rises.’

‘We’ll see you at dinner tonight, I hope?’ she asked, bewilderment in her voice. My leaving must have seemed very abrupt.

I had no desire to commit myself to dinner. ‘Wind and tide permitting,’ I promised her.

‘Then I shall hope for friendly winds and tides,’ she said, although she could not possibly have believed that Coniston Water was tidal in the least.

I could not force myself to come down to dinner that night and took dinner in my room again, but I made myself come down each night thereafter. It would excite comment to be seen taking my boat out each day, while continually claiming illness at dinner-time. In the meanwhile, I was polite but reserved with Lady Sutton. Dr Watson’s story stood between us like a wall, and I could not look her in the eye without remembering Mr Holmes’ humiliating comments about ‘drifting and friendless women.’ The phrase described her as easily as me, and it stung that she did not seem to mind it. Nor could I pass over Lady Sutton’s apparent enjoyment of the darkest episode of my life.

Lady Sutton seemed perplexed and perhaps hurt by my coolness, but she did not push herself on me, instead quietly acceding to my rejection of her company. Sadly, I respected her all the better for it. More than once during those three days I regretted her taste for sensational literature.

The third night, I arrived late to dinner: my appetite had been uncertain ever since reading Dr Watson’s story, regardless of my attempt to maintain appearances. The waiter seated me at my customary table, and I apologised for interrupting the meal with my tardy arrival.

Lady Sutton smiled, warm if somewhat wistful. ‘We’re only happy to see you well enough to join us.’

I returned her smile. ‘Please,’ I nodded to them all, ‘continue your discussion, don’t let me interrupt.’ I turned to the waiter who had appeared beside me.

‘Oh, I fear our conversation wouldn’t interest My Lady,’ Mr Bedford said. ‘We are only discussing the latest Sherlock Holmes story. Lady Sutton has been trying to convince us that Mr Holmes himself is the villain!’

I am happy to say that my hands did not falter as I served myself from the dish at my elbow. Jane had sent me the story, after all, so that I could prepare myself for exactly this situation.

‘That is a gross overstatement of my position, Mr Bedford.’ Lady Sutton said, her distaste for her dinner companion clear. She glanced at me. ‘And it is a lurid tale, not fit for discussion at table.’

‘Oh, come now!’ Mr Bedford scoffed. ‘You cannot make such wild claims and then beg off from defending them!’

Lady Sutton glanced at me again. I disliked the feeling that she had so easily read my discomfort with the story, and I did not wish her to call further attention to it. ‘I’m sure that “Lady Frances Carfax,” whoever she might be,’ I offered blandly, ‘is grateful to Mr Holmes for her life.’

Lady Sutton gave me a curious look. ‘And I imply no fault in Mr Holmes’ behaviour in that regard. Lady Frances had fallen prey to villains and was in desperate need of assistance, and Mr Holmes ably provided his. However,’ Lady Sutton turned back to Mr Bedford, her expression grim, ‘when a woman has fled a man across two decades and three countries, for Mr Holmes to then immediately deliver her directly into that man’s hands, I say that it is not well done. And to do so when she is unconscious and too ill to exert her own will? _That_ is very nearly criminal.’

I blinked at Lady Sutton in surprise, not having expected her, or anyone, to question the blithely happy ending that Dr Watson had hypothesised for me.

She saw my shock, and frowned back at me with concern. ‘Do you disagree, Lady Maria?’

The first weeks of my convalescence were lost to me, but the subsequent months were burned all too clearly into my mind as a waking nightmare. George Nelson, the man Dr Watson had renamed ‘Philip Green,’ had been a controlling and possessive man when I first met him; I had refused his suit for that reason and others, not the least of which was that I had no desire to marry regardless. His continued pursuit of me thereafter had only confirmed me in my opinion of his character. To later find myself an invalid, installed in his household and under his sole care… I have no memory of either occasion, but Jane later told me that I had injured myself twice whilst attempting to remove myself from that man’s household. Ultimately, Jane, with the help of her husband, had procured medical affidavits to the effect that I was not improving under George Nelson’s care, and had threatened the Earl with social scandal if he did not exert himself on my behalf. Even then, the Earl had refused to move his hand until Jane had promised to care for me herself. In truth, I owed all the liberty I had to Jane.

Or to put it in Mr Holmes’ more colourful terms: if I had been a ‘stray chicken among foxes,’ then Mr Holmes, in his infinite wisdom, had seen fit to deliver me from one pair of foxes straight into the jaws of a third.

I shook my head. ‘No,’ I told Lady Sutton, ‘I cannot disagree.’

She nodded her acknowledgement, but her eyes lingered on me.

‘But their devotion to each other persisted across decades,’ Mr Bedford protested. ‘Twenty years and neither of them with eyes for another!’

‘And a very pretty story it was indeed, Mr Bedford,’ Lady Sutton said, ‘but one entirely from Mr Green’s own lips. We are told that the great Mr Holmes is gifted with the ability to look beyond the stories told by faithless people, to the true tales told by the facts themselves. The _fact_ is that Lady Frances knew this man Philip Green well enough to run from him, and did so even after he made his case to her! No, it will not do.’

‘But without Philip Green,’ Sir Thomas interjected, ‘Lady Frances would have died at those villains’ hands. _That_ is a fact, Lady Sutton.’

The debate raged among the four of them, Mrs Bedford occasionally siding with her husband and Sir Thomas against Lady Sutton. For myself, I could not risk joining Lady Sutton in her criticism of Mr Holmes’ decision, not without betraying my own lack of distance from the matter.

Nor, unfortunately, could I stomach eating to the loudly sung praises of ‘Philip Green,’ no matter how staunchly Lady Sutton defended my interests.

‘I insist that we change the subject,’ Sir Thomas said presently. ‘I fear our disagreement has compromised Lady Maria’s appetite.’

Every face at the table turned to me.

‘Of course not,’ I smiled, my mother’s training rising to the surface. ‘I am only not so well as I first thought. If you will excuse me, Lady Sutton, Mrs Bedford, gentlemen, I’ll bid you good evening.’ The table murmured their regrets, the men stood, Sir Thomas assisted me with my chair, and I made my escape to the terrace.

The lake’s valley had long since filled with shadow, but the sky was still light. The valley boasted neither sunsets nor alpenglow; instead, from early evening onward, it only became steadily gloomier until the light failed altogether. A stiff breeze was coming off the water, and the hotel residents who were not in the dining room had abandoned the shadowed and rapidly-cooling terrace for the more genial salons inside.

I watched my little boat rock at its dock. It would excite too much comment to take it out now, in the rapidly falling dusk.

‘Lady Maria?’ Lady Sutton asked from behind me.

‘Lady Sutton,’ I said, my eyes still on the water. I had misjudged her interest in Dr Watson’s story, and I regretted it.

She came to stand near me at the balustrade. ‘I wish to apologise for my fervour, earlier,’ she said. ‘I had no wish to make you uncomfortable, or to drive you away from the table.’

She had a very American frankness: to deny that I had left the table because of the conversation would be nearly to call her a liar.

I was tempted to return her frankness. I had missed her companionship, and I resented Dr Watson’s story standing between us. Given her unwitting but vigorous defence of me at table, it was difficult to believe that she would carelessly let me become the subject of gossip, if I chose to confide in her. And if she thought less of me for being the object of such a lurid story… Well, there were other hotels in England. Some of them even had charming lakes.

‘It was five countries,’ I told her. ‘The man’s God-given name was George Nelson, not Philip Green, and I fled him through five countries, not three.’ I could not make myself look at her.

There were a few moments of shocked confusion on her part, and I waited them out. ‘My dear Lady Maria,’ she finally breathed, ‘Please forgive me. If I had realized—’

I shook my head, and she stopped abruptly. ‘You did no wrong. You were, after all, absolutely correct in your estimation of his character.’

She was quiet a moment. ‘That is not the kind of thing one enjoys being right about.’

I looked over at her. There was no pity in her eyes, only a wry regret. I studied her, and she looked back at me.

‘You have strong opinions about Mr Holmes,’ I finally ventured.

An expression flickered across her face, gone before I could understand it. ‘I've met the man. It’s not possible to meet Mr Sherlock Holmes without forming strong opinions of him.’

Foreboding filled me. ‘Socially, I hope?’

Her smile was bitter. ‘Has anyone ever had the good fortune to meet him socially?’

The enormity of the moment, and of my transgression, impressed itself on me. ‘Please forgive me, I fear I have forced a confidence.’

She shook her head, and it was my turn to fall silent.

‘My late husband was a violent man,’ she said at last, and the unrestrained venom in her voice made it clear why she never spoke of him. ‘He would have killed me, eventually. Nothing so calculated as cold-blooded murder, and yet still calculated in its own way. And still _murder_ , too, regardless of whether the courts would admit it.’

I belatedly realized that I had already seen what were likely her husband’s marks on her: a fine, old scar at her lip and another at her brow, both visible only in bright light. I had thought nothing of them, beyond that a childhood in Omaha was likely wilder than one in England. I stepped closer to her and offered her my hand. She took it, but did not look at me.

‘And Mr Holmes, he freed you from your husband?’

‘No.’ The look she gave me suggested that she found my question deplorably naive. ‘My husband died at the hands of a dear friend. It was not murder, although I would not have grieved if it had been. But my husband was well-connected, and his friends called upon Mr Holmes to see his death avenged. I thought I had known fear with my husband, but for forty-eight hours, Mr Holmes held the lives of everyone I loved in his hands. He was utterly unmoved by the torments my husband had put me through. He gave me to understand that he would see me hanged, if I did not tell him everything.’

I pressed her hand. ‘And did you?’

‘How could I? I would not have been the one facing the gallows for it.’

I was impressed with her courage. ‘Then how did you convince him to stay his hand?’ I refused to believe the story ended at the gallows for her friend. Mr Holmes had erred in my case, and I questioned Dr Watson’s taste in publishing his stories, but Jane would not have trusted them with my life if there was evil in them. That I believed with all my heart.

She slid me a glance I couldn’t interpret. ‘Not me, I could do nothing to move him. But my friend...’ Her smile became sly. ‘My friend told him a love story.’

I stared at her, before bursting into astonished laughter. ‘He is a _romantic!’_ I cried, and she nodded. ‘Oh, how like a man!’

She grinned. ‘I would have thought it a fabrication of Dr Watson’s, if I hadn’t seen it myself. And it was true in your case as well, I’m sad to say. Whisper a tale of thwarted love in his ear, man-to-man, and Mr Holmes is yours.’ She bit her lip. ‘I’m afraid I’ve made something of a study of the stories. I hope you don’t think less of me for it.’

‘No, no, I understand entirely,’ I assured her, taking her other hand and holding them both. ‘I might do the same myself, if so much rested on his whim. I am so very sorry I thought poorly of you, when I saw what you were reading—’

‘Oh, no!’ she interrupted me. ‘I hated seeing anyone reading my own story! Of course, it was different when mine was published. My life became somewhat simpler when Dr Watson went to press.’ At my questioning look, she explained, ‘He rather boxed his friend into a corner. Mr Holmes cannot now incriminate me without also incriminating himself.’

‘And yet you still read all the stories,’ I said. I could barely imagine the anxiety she must feel of the man, that she even now felt compelled to ferret out the smallest clues to his character.

‘Religiously,’ she admitted, with a rueful smile. She scowled abruptly. ‘And, oh, I was furious when I saw what he had likely done to you—not that I had known it was you! He put us all through hell with his damnable inability to accept my story over a few stray facts, and when I _think_ that he listened to Mr Green’s—’

‘Don’t fret yourself on my account. I was not without friends, and Jane put it right in the end.’

‘Jane?’

‘My dearest friend, we’ve been close since school. Dr Watson had the presumption to change her into my childhood nurse! It must prick her vanity terribly, although she hasn’t said.’

‘Oh,’ Lady Sutton said, her manner changed, ‘forgive me, I had not realized.’ We had been standing nearly flush to each other in our excitement, but she pushed back from me and released my hands.

I frowned at her, dumbfounded by her sudden coolness.

Then I realized what had happened, and reached for her hands again. ‘Jane is the dearest and most loyal friend that a woman could want,’ I assured her, stepping in close again. Lady Sutton stood her ground, her spine straight and expression aloof. ‘But she is happily married, and I am happy for her. I have not thought of her like that for years, I swear to you. Lately,’ I leaned in to her ear, dropping my voice low, ‘those thoughts have been _quite reserved for another.’_ I prayed that I had read her correctly.

‘I see,’ she said, her eyes wide. She had gone somewhat breathless.

I wanted desperately to kiss her in that moment, but we were on a public terrace, where anyone might look out and see us. ‘Do you?’ I asked. I turned her hands in mine and caressed them with my thumbs, trusting the low light to obscure the motion.

She nodded, her attention still fixed on me.

‘Come sailing with me tomorrow,’ I told her. It would be excruciating, having her willing and that close, but it would be so sweet, too. I would figure out something for privacy, open boats and public hotels and lady’s maids be damned.

She laughed in delighted surprise. ‘Ask me properly,’ she chided.

I leaned in close again, and let my breath caress her ear. _‘Come sailing with me tomorrow,’_ I told her, unrepentant. To my satisfaction, she shuddered.

When it passed, she gave me a stern look. ‘You intend to be incorrigibly authoritative, don’t you?’

Her expression made my heart soar: there was determination in it, but no displeasure. ‘No more than pleases you, I hope,’ I admitted. ‘You must tell me if it doesn’t.’

She examined me a moment longer, then dropped her eyes with a smile. ‘I shall require instruction,’ she admitted, when she looked up again. ‘I’ve never sailed before. Oh, don’t look at me like that. Of course I’ve _sailed,_ I’ve been happily widowed for years. But that contraption down there,’ she nodded at the lake below us, where my poor, maligned little boat sat invisible at its dock, _‘that,_ I am entirely innocent of.’

 _‘That,’_ I told her, somewhat stung in spite of myself, ‘is a seventeen-foot gaff-rigged racing yacht, liberated from Windermere Lake, and entirely undeserving of such disrespectful language.’

She laughed. ‘This is going to be like Sir Thomas’s aeroplanes, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ I told her, ‘this is going to be much more fun than Sir Thomas’s aeroplanes. Now come,’ I told her, and taking her hand, I nearly dragged her across the terrace in my enthusiasm. ‘We must find some paper. I must teach you the sail-plan, if you’re to be of any use tomorrow.’

She was forced to run a few steps to keep up with me. ‘I see it was entirely too much to hope that you would sail me gently around the lake, feeding me bon-bons while I sit graceful and idle.’

I grinned at her. ‘Entirely. You will _work_ tomorrow, and I will teach you to sail her, and we will sail her _beautifully.’_

‘Then I insist that you lead on, and directly teach me the difference between a sheet and a halyard.’

I turned back, suddenly suspicious that she was not as innocent of a sailboat’s rigging as she had led me to believe.

Her returning gaze was too innocent by far. She stepped close, eyes sparkling. ‘I wish you to take me sailing, Lady Maria. If at all possible, _tonight.’_

**Author's Note:**

> ‘[Michael Field](http://www.sappho.com/poetry/m_field.html)’ (incest warning for the link) was the joint pseudonym of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper, who published prolifically between 1889 and their deaths in 1913/14. Among other things, they wrote love sonnets to each other and extended Sappho's fragments into full lyric poems. They were outed by Robert Browning, but it did not seem to affect their careers or social standing. By the time of this story, they had converted to Catholicism.
> 
> [One-design sailing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Design#Sailing), in which all boats in a race are identical, began in Dublin in 1887 and spread from there. The original one-design class at the Royal Windermere Yacht Club was a 22’ boat, but in 1904 the 17’ boat was introduced: smaller, cheaper, more accessible, and capable of being sailed single-handed. [As one can see](http://www.royal-windermere.co.uk/gallery/early-17ft-class-yachts), the 17’ fleet sailed gaff-rigged in the early years. (Yes, this entire paragraph was an excuse to show you pictures of sailboats.)
> 
> For myself, I find [Ms Wilcox’s sentiments about sailing and adversity](http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_wilcox_set_of_the_sail.htm) frustratingly simplistic, but we both agree there is something miraculous about the fact that beating into the wind is possible at all.


End file.
